Forgive us our pride. Miami native Greenman worked for New Times after graduating from Palmetto Senior High and Yale University. In his time at the paper he wrote some excellent film and music criticism and several pretty darn funny stories. "Cracking Up" chronicled an experiment in which Greenman followed a mad scientist (the late John Detrick) around downtown Miami on a very hot summer day to see if eggs really would fry on sidewalks. During the 1991 tourism crisis, when violent criminals were targeting rental cars, Greenman produced the "New Times Rental Car Conversion Kit," a handy package of mail-order accessories tourists could use to give their rented vehicles a local look. Now based in New York, Greenman has embarked upon a bona fide literary career. By day he edits the extensive calendar section of The New Yorker magazine, to which he also contributes reviews and other material. In his free time he writes quirky and clever pieces of fiction that regularly appear in McSweeny's, the journal and Website (www.mcsweeneys.net). Last year the McSweeney's publishing imprint released Greenman's debut book, Superbad. According to reader postings on Amazon.com (and quoted by Greenman on his Website, www.bengreenman.com), "Superbad has been described as 'a masterpiece,' a 'piece of garbage,' and 'a book I haven't read yet but which I heard was pretty good in parts if annoying in other parts.'" Author Susan Minot had this to say after reading Superbad: "I don't know what goes on in Ben Greenman's mind, but inside there seems to be a Russian short-story writer, a slapstick gag writer, an art critic, a literary critic, a cultural commentator, a cowboy, a satirist, a scientist, a postmodernist, an anti-postmodernist, a surrealist, a nut, a genius, a stand-up comedian, a child prodigy, a dreamer, and a poet." When Greenman unveiled Superbad recently at Books & Books in Coral Gables, his proud parents invited the entire audience over to their house for coffee and cookies. As Greenman pointed out, this wasn't a take on some classic Andy Kaufman gag. Then again, he admitted, it kind of was.

You have to hand it to the City of Miami. Faced with the daunting task of persuading voters to pass yet another bond issue to improve the same parks the city had failed to improve after two previous bond issues, commissioners were wringing their hands over this difficult sales job. Then terrorists felled the World Trade Center in New York. And then letters spiked with anthrax began circulating in the mail. And then city officials came up with a bright idea. The bond issue's name was changed to "The Homeland Security and Neighborhood Enhancement" bond. After earmarking a tiny portion of the $255 million to buy a few gas masks, commissioners got what they wanted. City voters approved the bond. Let the spending begin!

You have to hand it to the City of Miami. Faced with the daunting task of persuading voters to pass yet another bond issue to improve the same parks the city had failed to improve after two previous bond issues, commissioners were wringing their hands over this difficult sales job. Then terrorists felled the World Trade Center in New York. And then letters spiked with anthrax began circulating in the mail. And then city officials came up with a bright idea. The bond issue's name was changed to "The Homeland Security and Neighborhood Enhancement" bond. After earmarking a tiny portion of the $255 million to buy a few gas masks, commissioners got what they wanted. City voters approved the bond. Let the spending begin!

The pop-radio wars have just begun. Dance-only upstart WPYM-FM (93.1) calls out the big dogs at Power 96 to put up or shut up. Power takes the bait and responds decisively. Sure it plays more commercials, and it saturates us regularly with hip-hop we've heard before, but Power still spins the better dance music, particularly after hours, and it gets bonus points for effectively mixing two very distinct and progressive urban sounds. It doesn't hurt to have competitors dropping Power 96's name so ridiculously often. Latin grooves still reign in the Magic City, but like it or not hip-hop is now and dance is the future. Power has them both covered and plenty of advertisers to keep it in business.

Being a cineaste in Miami means making your peace with malls. Over the past few years most choice indies and foreign flicks have landed at either the eighteen-screen South Beach Regal or one of the area's other multiplexes -- not our hit-and-miss art houses. So getting your celluloid fix has meant braving arena-size crowds and nightmarish parking. Fortunately the new Intracoastal Cinema has stepped into a comfortable middle ground, consistently earmarking several of its six screens for art fare. Even better, Mitchell and Nancy Dreier, the couple who own the Intracoastal (as well as five Broward theaters including the Gateway and the Sunrise), have moved past the usual Miramax suspects to spotlight such fare as the joyously whacked Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation, Charlotte Rampling's haunting comeback Under the Sand, and Mohsen Makhmalbaf's timely Kandahar. Plenty of free parking just steps from the front door, big screens, cushy seats, and (in stark contrast to most multiplexes) a relaxed air all combine to make moviegoing an experience instead of a trial.

This ain't the Waverly in Greenwich Village or anything, but it's as close as Miami gets. Part of the pleasure of going to the Cosford is meandering through that gorgeous, lush (and very non-NYC) University of Miami campus. The magic room on the second floor of Memorial Hall is where we get to see, a year or two after the New York crowd does, the recent labors of European directors and their counterparts in the Americas and elsewhere. Among the films on Cosford's multinational marquee this year were French director Jean-Pierre Ameris's Bad Company, a tale of twisted adolescent love and sex; Runaway, an English-Iranian documentary by Kim Longinotto and Ziba Mir-Hosseini set in a women's shelter in Tehran; and Israeli director Joseph Cedar's Time of Favor, a drama involving a Jewish soldier who plans a terrorist attack in Jerusalem. And let's not forget the latest screen gems from Canada. "Maelström [director Denis Villeneuve's 2001 opus] is the most celebrated work in French Canadian film history," Cosford's program guide proclaims. The theater screens two films each week. Movie nights are Friday through Sunday. The downside to the Cosford: It's closed during the summer. The schedule is online at www.miami.edu/com/cosford. Admission is five dollars for the general public, three bucks for senior citizens and university employees, and free for UM students. Take Granada Boulevard into the university and look for the signs, which will take you to Campo Sano Avenue and the parking lot. Best to call for directions.

Bumper to bumper to bumper on I-95. Multicar pileup? Construction? Who cares? You're stuck. But the left lane promises release. You careen up and onto the turnpike. The on-ramp curves up and around and so do you, swerving madly to avoid the little blue Toyota doing 20 and the silver Lexus doing 90, both of which want your spot. Having successfully defended your turf, you cruise on up to the toll plaza at the Golden Glades Interchange. You shoot through the SunPass lane, and in no time you're making speed, a blissful smile on your face. But you've done more than escape gridlock. You've penetrated the barrier between two worlds -- from lunacy to normalcy, from citified to sedate. You've crossed the county line. Miami awaits your return.

Film and theater directors and actors, poets and writers have been allowing audience members to have at them for years in frank exchanges about content and merit, seriousness and triviality. Now the Rubell family, boutique hoteliers and major art collectors, are applying the principle to visual artists. Several times a year accomplished artists like Jeff Koons, Andres Serrano, Ross Bleckner, Cindy Sherman, and Damien Hirst will display their work and appear in the cozy Bamboo Room of the Rubell's Beach House hotel to talk about art with fans and perhaps less-than-fans. So far this year's artists have included Rineke Dijkstra, the famed Dutch chronicler of youth at bay (April 25), and Maurizio Cattelan, the impish sculptor who portrayed Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite and got the art world all upset (May 2).

They line up hours in advance, sitting on lawn chairs and atop plastic coolers. Kids with balloons tied to their wrists drink orange sodas and nibble on sugar bread purchased from Calle Ocho bakeries doing brisk business. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen walks by prior to the start, absorbing the throaty cheers of her core constituency. Miami's Three Kings Parade debuted in 1971 after Fidel Castro canceled Christmas and its ancillary celebrations in Cuba. (Three Kings Day honors Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, the three kings who followed a bright star to Bethlehem, where they presented the newborn Christ child with gold, frankincense, and myrrh.) Now a Calle Ocho tradition, Miami's parade features a slow-rolling procession of high school marching bands, Spanish-language radio hosts, entertainers such as Willy Chirino and Elvis Crespo, and sports stars such as gruesomely muscled baseball slugger José Canseco. The greatest cheers, though, rise for the rogues gallery of local politicians. City Commissioner Tomas Regalado and his daughter. City Commissioner Joe Sanchez twice, once on a car with his name stuck to the side and once again, later, on horseback. A grinning Joe Carollo, unaccompanied by a bikini-clad model now that he's unaffiliated with any public office. Angel Hernandez, a convicted felon and newly elected city commissioner, is greeted warmly, as is new mayor Manny Diaz, dapper in a blue guayabera. A red Corvette convertible slowly motors past. In the back seat, receiving blown kisses and the loudest cheers of the day, is the Fisherman, Donato Dalrymple, still a man of honor in Little Havana.

Renewing a passport can be a pain. You have to call for an appointment, then you have to wait two weeks or so, then you have to go downtown, then you have to wait, and then -- well, like we said, it's definitely a hassle. Not so at Miami City Hall. The extremely professional city clerk's office offers a painless way to apply for or renew a passport. The whole thing takes eight minutes, tops, and you don't even need an appointment. Just drop by the clerk's office window on Dinner Key, fill out a short form, hand over a small check, then walk over to the camera. Smile. After the photo develops, blush at how good-looking you are, then leave. Your passport will arrive in the mail in a matter of days. If you pay an expediting fee, you can have it even sooner. It's that easy.

This is no joke. Jim Clark, a former WAMI-TV (Channel 61) sports producer with otherwise good credentials, began whipping Channel 9 into shape in the fall of 2001. Under his guidance we can still witness extraordinary performances by one of South Florida's best acting troupes, the Miami Commission, but now we can enjoy the show without the garbled audio. The station also transmits meetings of other bodies that occasionally make important decisions, including the Code Enforcement Board, the Historic and Environmental Preservation Board, the Parks Advisory Board, the Planning Advisory Board, the Urban Development Review Board, the Waterfront Advisory Board, and the Zoning Board. But there's more. Viewers, and perhaps some of our elected officials, can bone up on the basics of our system of government in the United States by watching On Common Ground. This program is funded by various state governments and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Channel 9 also offers the PBS-produced show Crossroads Café, which is designed for people learning English as a second language. For those of us whose first language is English but still need a little more practice, the station presents TV 411, a production of the Adult Literacy Media Alliance. Call for current program times. The station is carried only on cable within Miami city limits, but Clark hopes to have it streaming on the Internet in the near future.